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hello_hello · 13th December 2015, 13:54

I have ffdshow installed with all it's decoding disabled except for uncompressed audio. That way something else can do the decoding but ffdshow will process the decoded audio and therefore it's filters can still be used. I'm pretty sure AC3Filter can be configured the same way (PCM only). The only downside is, if you want to enable any AC3 dynamic range compression, the decoder would need to be able to do it.

I compress via a WinAmp plugin. ffdshow will load them. Here's a couple I'd recommend, and obviously you can compress any audio type, and not just AC3 with dynamic range compression data.
LoudMax (dsp_LoudMax.dll is in a zip file under "Additional Releases")
RockSteady

Another alternative, if you want to downmix and convert would be to use foobar2000. It's AC3 decoder (it's a separate plugin) will apply AC3 dynamic range compression, but I don't bother as I apply compression via RockSteady. foobar2000's DSPs can be used with it's converter.
There's Winamp DSP Bridge for loading Winamp plugins, VST adapter for loading VST plugins (The LoudMax DSP I mentioned earlier also comes as a VST plugin), a couple of matrix mixer DSPs for downmixing however you like (I've only used the first one) Matrix Mixer & Channel Mixer and there's another compressor DSP called R128Norm.

Foobar2000 might be a bit of work to set up if you've not used it before, but it has an advantage of being able to save conversion presets and you can just load files into it's playlist and batch convert. As opposed to importing the audio into a program, downmixing, applying compression, exporting it again, then re-encoding etc.

There's a zip file with some compression comparisons attached to this post if you're interested (the uncompressed source is called MeGUI Downmix). I probably could have configured LoudMax better but I'd not used it before. From memory I compressed with each compressor then ran a ReplayGain scan and used the result to adjust each sample to the same volume to make comparing them easier.

I've found when applying compression there's not much point increasing the volume of the centre channel much, because it just gets compressed.

PS The Dynamic Audio Normalizer mentioned a couple of posts ago works much the same way as RockSteady and LoudMax and it's quite good.

13th December 2015, 13:54	#4 \| Link
hello_hello Registered User Join Date: Mar 2011 Posts: 4,829	I have ffdshow installed with all it's decoding disabled except for uncompressed audio. That way something else can do the decoding but ffdshow will process the decoded audio and therefore it's filters can still be used. I'm pretty sure AC3Filter can be configured the same way (PCM only). The only downside is, if you want to enable any AC3 dynamic range compression, the decoder would need to be able to do it. I compress via a WinAmp plugin. ffdshow will load them. Here's a couple I'd recommend, and obviously you can compress any audio type, and not just AC3 with dynamic range compression data. LoudMax (dsp_LoudMax.dll is in a zip file under "Additional Releases") RockSteady Another alternative, if you want to downmix and convert would be to use foobar2000. It's AC3 decoder (it's a separate plugin) will apply AC3 dynamic range compression, but I don't bother as I apply compression via RockSteady. foobar2000's DSPs can be used with it's converter. There's Winamp DSP Bridge for loading Winamp plugins, VST adapter for loading VST plugins (The LoudMax DSP I mentioned earlier also comes as a VST plugin), a couple of matrix mixer DSPs for downmixing however you like (I've only used the first one) Matrix Mixer & Channel Mixer and there's another compressor DSP called R128Norm. Foobar2000 might be a bit of work to set up if you've not used it before, but it has an advantage of being able to save conversion presets and you can just load files into it's playlist and batch convert. As opposed to importing the audio into a program, downmixing, applying compression, exporting it again, then re-encoding etc. There's a zip file with some compression comparisons attached to this post if you're interested (the uncompressed source is called MeGUI Downmix). I probably could have configured LoudMax better but I'd not used it before. From memory I compressed with each compressor then ran a ReplayGain scan and used the result to adjust each sample to the same volume to make comparing them easier. I've found when applying compression there's not much point increasing the volume of the centre channel much, because it just gets compressed. PS The Dynamic Audio Normalizer mentioned a couple of posts ago works much the same way as RockSteady and LoudMax and it's quite good. Last edited by hello_hello; 13th December 2015 at 17:02.